Man of her Dreams
by Mess
Summary: Celena Schezar faces the mystery of her past. And yes, yes I am bad with summaries. Huzzah!


celenaffnet **Candlewick**   
**man of her dreams**   


_If your mind inside was like mine_   
_You would find and see me_   
_You would be welcome in my dreams_   
_-- "Welcome", Boa_   


The first time she noticed it was when, at the fourth annual Ball and Dinner Benefit for Consumptive Youth, a gentleman opposite her and three seats to the right paid a glancing attention to the way she cut her broccoli. Which she probably shouldn't have noticed, since the steak was dry and Allen was talking about strange and wonderful delights that did not interest her in the slightest but should, as she was a Good Sister and he was really very kind to her. But the girl's thoughts had started running tonight. And once they started then did not stop, like some fearful rush of waterfall waiting for the winter. Not many people knew that, since she didn't talk alot. 

Celena Schezar thus continued demurely. Smiling, nodding, chewing, swallowing - eyes downcast but not _too_ downcast, because then they'd think badly of Allen, and they should never do that. While the corners of her irises remained motionless, like an osprey ready to dive. Registering only the motions of the moment with the innate discrimination of a hunting cat. 

Blink. Glance. Blink. Glance. Draaaaaaaaaw away. Chat. Chat. Blink. Glance. 

Casually, so as to avoid the rind of fat without, Celena carved herself a sliver of meat a razor's edge away from gristle. One single line arcing down into a perfect, unnoticed sweep with just enough force to avoid scratching the plate. The man, throat open under a swaddling of blue necktie, visibly swallowed. 

What a very strange person. 

"Sir Allen?" 

"Yes, Lady Celena?" the blonde, who was naturally seated next to her, murmured back after nodding himself away from a conversation. He always murmured to his sister. She liked the quiet, and he thought it appropriate in the same way he made sure she was brought madeleines and marmalade instead of a ham sandwich for tea. Because he loved her. 

"Do you know why that man is looking at me oddly?" cerulean eyes tracked the candles of the chandelier winking through a cascade of matching golden hair. Roaming away from the face of her sibling to a visage, the aforementioned three seats away, that glowed along with the crowd. All together, in their world of yellows to set off the standard of wealth, they shone. Luminous. Illuminati. Feather and bead and crystal and embroidery. In a word - Noble. "Is there something wrong with my dress?" 

Sometimes, the silk chafed her legs - raising red little bumps from their graves within unnaturally fair skin. 

"Not at all, Celena. Just ignore him." 

To spite the candles, a chill ran through the room. It was then that Celena realized Allen was watching too now from beneath ladykiller lashes. That they always were - tracking a path back to the wall of her memory. 

Blink. Blink. Blink.   
  


_Princess Millerna once advised I keep a journal. But I do not like to write alot, I think. I think. I think I've never tried. I haven't tried alot of things. I'll try this once, I guess. She's always thinking of things for me to do. I think it makes her feel better about Allen._

_It's better than needlework, I guess. That hurts my fingers, and my stitches are a waste of thread. Shouldn't I know how to do that? I was trained in the arts of a lady, I assume. And I have, as Her Royal Highness says, 'retained a miraculous degree of practical knowledge after the shock wore off'._

_So I shall write this down, just in case I stop remembering my dreams. Allen says that alot of people don't. That's weird. I do. Every vivid little second of them; even the ones in black and white. Maybe it's payback. That would make sense. I deserve payback for everything I can't remember that I should - everything that isn't locked away or just out of reach but... missing. Nonexistent - puffed into thin air. Amnesia is like that. This great big neutral white thing that I cannot touch, cannot evaluate, cannot quantify and destroy. Just a frustrating nub of **there**. It is without blood and to be poked at like a bad mosquito bite. Except I'm not supposed to do that. Scars, you know._

_I have dreams at night. Nightmares. Of butterflies and green cascades._

_Is that strange too?_

_I have dreams where someone is looking at me. And when he turns I feel the earth revolve below me._   
  


Once she'd noticed it, she couldn't go back. Couldn't even dream of it. It was easy for her to miss things - like the way the sunlight falls on leaves to carry them up to the skies. Or the way a lady's hair spins to weave herself a suitor. Or why a hatpin must not be used in conjunction with pig trussed over the fire who flesh awaits rupture and consumption. Because as normal as this was to be, as normal as they wanted it, she couldn't make connections. It bombarded her, this bright new life of bright new colors and gaudy ornaments, with facts and figures and matters of sense that had to be taken up posthaste. She was disconnected from this. Something somehow apart. Lost in a maze of sensation - whether it was from that blinding whiteness that devoured her life or a creature just as wicked as they way they would not meet her eyes. 

Right now, for example, Celena Schezar studied the eyes of the table. The lady didn't usually bother with that, being far more content to take in the light shining off of a polished fork or the intricacies of tablecloths. They were, it was true, just a device to buoy her mind away from Allen, who talked at her as if she knew nothing or too much depending on the occasion. But the eyes were more mysterious that the usual fodder. They bore a question. 

"Allen," Celena risked upsetting her elder sibling, lightly jostling his arm with her own gloved limb. "Why do none of them look at me but that man?" 

He did not hear her. That was obvious, from the way he ignored her to focus his own eyes on a veiled veiled woman to the right. Her name was Galatea. She had something to do with sheep. Celena knew this because she wore a funny hat, and Allen had made her learn the names before they went to avoid embarrassing them. 

And that was really kind of funny, maybe, unless she had it all wrong again. Since none of them would look at her anyways. Except for the man - the man with a beard - and Schezar did not care for him at all. He would stop that. Immediately. he must stop that! it was unacceptable! The crew of the Crusade would never play some idiotic game of cat and mouse when there was real work to be done! 

A hand covered with white fabric clenched. That was anger, and anger is wrong - like flogging servants, or killing butterflies. Calm, Celena. Let the skin turn white along the sterling silver of your fork. 

Playing with her pasta, the fair haired young woman took a quick swig-turned-sip of red wine. She'd remembered in time this time. Success! It all tasted the same to her, even though these people and Allen seemed to think it was bad. Or good. Or something that didn't match the other things they were eating? And they worried about her having too much, which was funny too, since one time she'd had a whole bottle and nothing had happened. 

Sensing the need for someone to do so, she flashed the man who looked a wicked little grin. And he blanched. Really, now. Was Allen that dangerous? 

Celena wanted her memory back soon. Since then her feet might not hurt so much in these shoes. 

And then, miraculously, Allen turned back as the waiters passed out a grim little orange sorbet to match cream walls. Everything matched when ladies threw parties- and their erstwhile peer was very proud at herself for having noticed that when her guardian usually had to tell her these things. 

"Allen?"   


_I have dreams about lots of things. But I mostly dream about him._

_I don't tell Allen, because he worries too much about everything and everyone that matters. Princess Millerna is one of those people, and I'm another. She seems to like it though - or at least I think so, since she's always coming to our house for tea, and tea is terribly boring, so I can't see what else it would be. Unless she actually** likes** tea. That would be funny. Whoever had the idea to drink leaves? What hideous devil possessed them? One day I shall meet that person. And then I shall do something to them that Millerna might look cross about._

_Anyways, anyone that likes drinking leaves can't be very reliable, even if they do mean well. So I don't tell Her Highness either._

_My maid once asked me if I dreamt of my true love (since lots of people have dreams about true loves, apparently, and then they sweep them away to mystic moons and castles in the sky). Then another maid said something I couldn't hear to her, and they left in a big rush. Maids must have alot of work to do, I guess. But they're not very bright if they think it's something like that, since it's not. I'm pretty sure I'd know if it was, and what dragons are there about the manor for a knight to slay for me anyhow?_

_In my dreams, he is usually smiling. Even I can tell that it is not the sort of smile Allen would approve of. But it doesn't scare me, and so I watch him watching me. And we stand there - lost on a cliff in the wind while the mist rises - when sometimes I catch the smell of napalm._

_I have never seen real mist, and I have never smelt napalm before. But I assume that knowing what it (the napalm) is has to do with that war. Those must have been interesting times._   


"Shush, Celena," it was not an unfriendly rebuke - framed as it was with a quick smile and one of the overpoweringly large windows that Austuria at large favored heavily. "I must keep this connection open if we're to be in court next Season." 

That was not right. That was not right at all. Allen should be looking at her and answering her question. Didn't he owe that? She'd come all the way here for him.. why? Why couldn't he answer her? What stupid vapid chitchat was worth ignoring her? Why didn't that man - that horrible, stupid, loutish _man_ - stop it. Why? Why why why? Why could she not _understand_ anything when she obviously knew other things? Why was this.. this.. incomprehensibility what she had known, what she could know, what she should know, what she _must_ know? The order of forks, the cards for dancing, the thick wax candles instead of lamps.. what was wrong with these people? Decorum, rules, counter-rules, rules that were not at certain points and rules that would be if you did something that way. What the hell was wrong with these people? Why did they make no FUCKING sense!? 

She was so fucking tired of being so fucking confused. 

And she did not know that word. Oh no, she did not know _that_ word... 

Breathe. Breathe. The breath - heated by a distant hearth - echoed in and out of lungs that had suddenly become cavernous and dry in her chest. Oh gods, she was standing now.. clutching the edge of an artistically draped table. All their eyes upon her like a pack of wolves. Spinning around lie.. dizzy. She needed water. Yes. 

"I need water." 

The lapse had startled him. And the unintentional recovery made her brother proud, she knew it. That was good. She never meant to make him unhappy. He was the only one to answer her at all. It wasn't his fault she was... 

The tears pricking her cheeks did not fall, then, until the girl was safely out of sight in a dim stone hallway. When she got frustrated, the blonde was sure to hide it. Frustration upset things. It wasn't Allen's fault that everything was so new.. even if it wasn't supposed to be so new and... 

The moon was quite dispassionate when, at a small slit admitting light to the spiral corridor, Schezar decided that it was, indeed, not fair.   


_He is angry often, my figment, but never at me._

_Sometimes I think that he is my only friend._

_Is his what real friendship is? Of course not. I'm just dreaming._

_It's no wonder that Allen likes to keep me in the country. For the fresh air, he says, but I know he truth. I just don't seem to understand anything._   


The water thrust into her hand by a servant tamped her spirit down (ladies are apt o have delicate constitutions). And the fair-haired maiden felt control seep back into her with every cooling drop that passed her lips. When the stairs stopped spinning and the mystic moon stood on guard in a stable position. Blue suited and sanding at the ready through the omnipresent window. 

Always windows. Glassed over to render nature better for the watching. And her memory - or what was left of it - skimmed across the silicon in a desperate stalling tactic. Helping her hang in the humid night air. 

They would all be looking at her now, of course. This was when they drugged her on their pity, and Allen held her by the shoulders, and their titters made everything so very fine. Doting aunts kissing a child's scraped knee. 

Why was that so wrong? 

The glass was clenched in her palm. Two pale hands were shaking in the half-light. 

What was so wrong with her? 

"Are you alright, Milady?" 

"Fine, thank you. But sir..." 

What was so wrong with her, that hat man with his feathers and his ruffles would come all the way out here just to speak with her. And look with those cobalt eyes like he was evaluating .. something. 

"If you would mind telling me, sir, I don't mean to be rude, but...: 

The window was open. Ah. A breeze ran chills along her neck, and she did not enjoy seeing the candle flames gutter. Allen would have a fit if he found her out here with some strange male - he whole court would, if they heard, because she was Celena Schezar and she was unsafely delicate and... 

All these words she had to remember! The meaning was still the same. Everything here was about memory, and the near-albino would have none of that. 

"Fine, thank you," and yet for some reason, she did no wish to leave. 

The Lady - mind, it seemed, always on the verge of shattering to Allen's watchful eye - was well and truly not afraid. 

"Do you have some difficulty with me?" 

A strand of naturally curled hair fell out of a careful twist, and into what the owner might have recognized as a glare. But she did not think of these things. 

Was she not scared of him, with his knowledge of balls and dances and manners? Was she not terrified? Did she not want to go home and lie down? 

Perhaps it was best that her brother was not here, after all. For Celena was not afraid. And the noble almost felt like...   


_But he's not always angry when I see him, and those are the times I like best because our nights are very long together. Those are the nights when we are children, and we run through the field with a great gold retriever. Is that Allen? Is my book of symbols correct? I I simply cannot tell anymore, if I could ever tell anything in the first place._

_I am so.. useless! I can't do anything right but dream! Allen tries to teach me, but..._

_What's wrong with me?_

_Often in my dreams he is laughing. It is a comforting laugh, despite the connotations. He is not me - I know that - but when he laughs I seem to understand something for once. And understanding anything has become very valuable to me now that Allen has started having me make appearances with him outside the estate._

_I laugh too, to keep him company, since he has taken the trouble to be my figment. And I wonder why I feel like giggling (though not like him), then, because suddenly it all seems so silly in the firelight. All the wondering and comprehension and issues and mystery and... silliness._   


"Can you tell me, sir, what exactly is bothering you?" he blonde looked down upon him, garbed as he was in the gaudily bland uniform of the Austurian nobility. Lace. Breeches. Tunic and viola. 

"You're more observant than they said you were, Albatou," his lip curled, locked in shadow. Was he coming closer? The moisture from his lips become somehow tangible but a few steps away. 

"Come again?" Celena tried to keep her voice level, like a Lady's. 

"You heard me. Albatou," she might have called it menace, if the words were not so cold. Would they put the lights out in the hall? "How can you honestly think that none of us know? Half the Austurian army saw your return, young 'lady'?" 

"Know what?" 

Finally, someone knew something! Even if it was this creepy fop that smelled of wine and sex and talcum, who was backing her slowly against the wall. 

"We know that you used to be, murderer." 

The noble's voice was low, and in the background of her skull the lady's guardian devil was laughing. _Laughing_. 

Murderer.... 

Oh God..... 

"I don't know what you're talking about!" her face snaked back into he shadows, contorted into something like shock. The girl's cheeks had flushed, eyes widened, and there was a certain tense readiness under the guilded ruffles.   
"Oh you don't, do you?" the beard slurred, still nameless. "How convenient. If you weren't Allen Schezar's sister you'd be hanging from the rack for what you did. I guarantee it. How can you think we don't fear you? How can you DARE show your face here after what you've done? You're sick, do you hear me? Sick. What the hell are you, some kind of doppleganger? Some freak that..." 

How dare he force her back like this! How dare he! Celena Schezar did not retreat! 

... Allen said this was improper behavior towards a lady. This scum was obviously lying, because Allen would have told her. Since he trusted her, he'd tell her if she'd been.. of course he would! 

And the guttering flame reflected in those cerulean eyes - for once wide-open instead of he lamb's half-lidded languidness. 

"Enough!" 

Her hand, pulled back and sprung forth with a strength born of momentum and precision. A white-blue streak in the moonlight, blurring through an air that did not quite dare to sound it's coming, and causing a spectacular crack to make up for it. He palm - left, and fully responsible - knew exactly what it was doing, and had carved a crescent arc 

But Celena had not expected the instinct curled 'round the heart of the action to throw him back down the cold stone flight, or to have bent his nose to a sickening, unnatural, bloody angle that she had seen in Princess Millerna's textbooks. 

Her palms, so thinly armoured by a sheath of satin, did not sting. 

"It really is you, isn't it?" blinking back tears, expression recoiled, the noble rasped with a tremor of fear. he had landed in an uncomfortable looking sprawl on the floor, before dragging himself shakily upwards and holding his broken nose. This could be well documented. He had emerged back into the light. "I'll tell them. I'll tell them all" 

Schezar simply stared at perfect bloody fingers.   


_I can hear it in my head, if I think about it. Like you remember a particular song that's stuck with you in the market after all the others have melted into one big blur of violin. I do not remember voices at parties, or faces too for that matter. That's so tedious. So it's like.. it's something I should know, I guess. Since I don't remember very well things that are not a part of me beyond the great white void that is my life._

_It's funny, though. Sometimes when I'm awake I can imagine that he's there too..._

_And I don't feel as out of place as I know I am then._   


"Oh Allen.. I... " 

"It's all right, Celena. This stay in the city was too much too soon - I'm sorry. Lets get you home." 

"Here dear, don't cry. Wipe your tears with this handkerchief.. you can keep it if you like." 

"But Allen, I wanted to... "   


----------- 

_Note: Esca and Dilandau and Dryden rock my world, bu he only one of the lot that really seems ficcable to me is Celena. How odd. She makes for a very interesting concept, though I'm not entirely happy with this. Realization-POV does NOT come naturally to me. Hopefully it shall get better in the progression? Indeed!_


End file.
